Commander

Oh god, don't remind me of the school. I get plenty of issues and complaints with Reborn Hardcore, but the Onyx school is probably the biggest culprit of too much experience. It starts to flaten out down the line but considering you have almost no other way to train Pokemon, it really helps (personally, I train up 2 reserves to prevent overleveling). So yes, the thing about Hardcore is that you rarely ever need to grind except if you want to train something else up and trust me, you will. What happened with Onyx's Trainer School is that someone else was originally working on hardcore and designed it with level 28-30 trainers (or it felt like it) in which I tried patching that mess up. It's honestly a blessing that the issue is too much experience instead of a janked up brutal trainers (I almost wiped on them before the nerfs). But hey, you get extra money anyways just be glad it isn't the opposite issue and you have to spend hours grinding for each leader.

Not true. I remember Suze saying once at the start of this project he wanted to make something similar to Reborn. In fact, quite a few fangames follow a bit in Reborn's footsteps due to how well of a system it is (limited Pokemon, lack of money/good healing items, no TMs, and most importantly 6 Pokemon on a team) for a challenging Pokemon game. However, it'd be hard for me to judge Insurgence because I haven't played it and due to Reborn being my favorite fan-game just for being so fairly unfair. Due to that, I have a warped impression of both games (that and I didn't like Zeta) I don't think Insurgence is a bad game at all though.

There are three things that are equally important when making a fan-game: story, gameplay, and the graphics, however, that does not mean the quality of all three have to be equal, but they help balance each other out. A horrible story can be forgiven which superb gameplay and somewhat pleasing graphics on the eyes. Likewise, a game with horrible graphics can still be enjoyable with an amazing story and gameplay. It's an interesting balance, but it's one best to learn pretty early. While graphics aren't a standalone thing, I'll try to explain how they are important or can be very effective to a game. Consistency over quality is a major point as you never want anything jarring sticking out as people like looking at things and will remember anytime they see it. (It's similar to me when I see a cringeworthy plot since I'm a writer...ish). Graphics is more or less something to help boost the other two. Due to the gen III and IV design, you almost certainly won't be able to pull some wowing visuals, but animations help immerse people in the story since nobody likes watching people monologue while standing in place. Environments and the world, if they look gorgeous, will keep people's attention and sometimes make them forget about a sour moment (I love the look of Reborn's Wasteland which made me forgive the tediousness of that section). From a gameplay perspective, flashy color are flashy. No seriously, flashy combat isn't necessarily a bad thing as it makes battles more interesting and engaging. Think of your favorite move to watch and ask yourself why. Gen I's thunderbolt is one of my favorites just due to that nostalgic sound, but Gen III's wing attack is my favorite just due to that gust of wind motion. It's a heck of a lot better than Raptor Ex's fire ball for every attack (including growl). As for my honest opinion, graphics are very important to any type of game, pokemon included, but you're already in a structure designed for low quality visuals so I honestly don't think you need to spend too much time on it. Just don't neglect visuals.

Oh boy there are so, so many things I could say about this, but I'll try to pick off a couple of things. Just know I was only able to watch about six battles in total so I don't know too much, but I do know a couple things. The first thing I should suggest is pretty simple: -I don't anything wrong with allowing a legendary or mega pokemon (1 each or maybe only allowing one) in the UU and below. I don't think Regice is going to break the league so allowing for these could help lower the repeated mons thing quite a bit. Mega Aggron could help reduce the number of Rotoms used. There's a bigger type of issue I have a pretty good solution for. I saw quite a number of times some users had to completely start from scratch due to not being able to beat one single leader. I figure a plea system could really help out in this area: So basically, let's say Jimmy has defeated 7 gym leaders, but has lost to this one gym leader five times now. Instead of going back, they can send a PM to the person in charge of team changes (or the plea system). There message is "I can't beat this gym leader so please change Blissey into a Metagross." Their request gets denied though in which the person says they don't see the problem. Sally has the same problem, but in her PM she writes a 200 word note describing why her team isn't able to beat the leader and why this new Pokemon replacing her old one would really help out. She also includes a couple Replays to better explain it. The person in charge grants her the new Pokemon and changes it on her trainer card. This is a pretty rough system so someone trying to use this system may be granted only 1 team change, 2 if they're lucky, so that a system like this won't be exploited. I can't give too much of an example as I don't know how hard or strict Dash and his team wants to be (for me personally, I'd say 1 Pokemon only can be swapped except in extreme circumstances such as a Sand Team). The point of this is so that people who hit a wall can move forward a little bit more instead of redoing the whole entire thing only to be stopped at the same exact wall. Ugh, that's poorly worded, but maybe I'll edit it in the morning or something.

Uhh...Sandstorm doesn't boost Sand Tomb at all unless you were talking about extra chip damage. Sandstorm only boosts the special defense of rock types by 30% unless they have an ability such as Sand Rush or Sand Force. I'm surprised you got through that Julia fight without any loses, but considering you have to get through Vicky, Cain, Scraggy Gang, Pulse Growth, the academy so tortuous I had to nerf it, and Fern before you can even reach Florinia. If you manage to beat Florinia with that team, I'll be impressed. Unfortunately, D-rage spam won't be able to save you from Florinia as her team is bulky and strong.

I have a pot of 2,000 rupees for the first person who manages to complete a nuzlocke of Hardcore. I mean people can add to it if they want, but we think it's impossible through legitimate means. As long as you don't cheat or use legendaries, I think it's fair game.

Here lies Lord Chespin: He tried to beat Julia with a water type. It didn't end so well.

What I did was redo the whole Police Egg event so I have no idea what's going to hatch out of it? Anyways, here you go Edit: What I mean is, I have no idea what stats or ability it is going to have.

Personally, I disagree with this. It was a fan made idea and I love the thought that it's just so easy to cheat or find loopholes (gotta love Kit's Nuzlocke hell moments) it makes staying true to the challenge harder and more rewarding. I generally agree with this which is why I kept the lucky egg and exp share available at the very beginning of the game. The only true consequence is that it gives way too much experience and really accelerates the process of raising a new mon. That's part of the reason behind the five level shift which really did change how the start of the game is played. Now I'm going to break down what makes a Pokemon game difficult since it's very hard to lump it into one single section (take notes people): A 6 vs 1 Scenario This type of fight is very difficult to make...well difficult since there are so many ways to cheese it such as Destiny Bond, T-wave, Featherdance, etc. What most RPG makers do is make bosses immune to status effects such as death and others have such a low success rate they're obsolete. Legendaries themselves aren't as strong as they look which is they require a pretty big (10) level gap to make them so scary. The only solution to remove cheesing would have to be through a field effect since legendaries even have their limits. A 6 vs 6 Scenario This is pretty much a computer vs the player and with base essentials, this is lop sided in the player's favor. Switching is the biggest factor as they switch too little too late often, but that doesn't mean they can't be hard. Another big disadvantage is the fact the player has "unlimited items" along with the shift ability which can make a tricky scenario quite easy. Removing these two factor will greatly increase the difficulty of any type of playthrough. Now let's look at the computer's team. There's a lot of thinking that has to go into what to give them. A team of all legendaries could be weaker than a grass monotype if the designer isn't careful. The AI isn't the worst thing in the world, but it takes some time getting used to as it will f up some clever strategies. The big goal is to try and make a solid team of 6 instead of 5 meh Pokemon (2 could be pathetic one shots) and one super powerhouse. It's pretty much putting all your eggs in one basket. Monotype vs Non-Mono This is a very interesting scenario as you may just jump on the train and say "the non-mono will always be stronger." I'm going to try and give an analogy of why this is both true and false. Picture a swordmaster who has spent many years honing his swordsmanship. He knows all there is about his blade techniques and even his faults. Now picture another man who has spent all his life learning how to wield a variety of weapons such as lances, swords, and axes. When it comes to a sword fight, the swordmaster would easily win, but maybe the other man is able to use a lance instead giving him an advantage and being victorious. A monotype uses a type to the fullest of its abilities, which makes it both the most threatening and least threatening fights in the games. Non-monos generally have a constant difficulty but due to their variety, they can't always cover everything. So in the long run, I've learned non-monos are harder to make super difficult to face due to their limits. Levels are a misconception Here's a question I ask you: on average in Hardcore, how much higher do you think a leader's highest leveled Pokemon is above your own? How much do you think their lowest is? The first answer is 3 and the second is one below your own. What do you think regular reborn is? The same exact thing, but the only difference is you don't have to fight or worry about a level cap in regular reborn. Here's something I really want to drill into people's heads: if you have to make a full team of the opponent's Pokemon 5-6 levels higher than the player's, then it's a poorly built team. I mean obviously you have to give some Pokemon a huge level advantage such as Volbeat due to its stats, but nobody wants to face a lead 47 Medicham with low 40 mons and that being the easy mon on the team. I know how easy it is, but spend some time working on bosses instead of using a program to level spike them. Expect the Unexpected There's something in difficulty such as going into the unknown or a surprise factor. If you don't know what you're opponent is or is using, you can't necessarily prepare that well for them. Randomizer's run off of this fact which is how they can extremely flux in difficulty. It's difficult to program (more like time consuming), but if you make bosses have sets of teams that switch up, the player will have a very, very hard time trying to exploit them. That's not the point of this section though. Some pokemon are just glaringly obvious what they are known for and what they're going to do. Gengar obviously will run Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb, etc. My point is you need to get creative as when something unexpected comes out of the blue, it keeps people engaged and rethink they're tactics. Let's say the player sees a Typhlosion, knowing its only Grass move is Solar Beam, they send out Swampert thinking its safe. Suddenly it Power Herb Solar Beams to one shot it. A variety of teams is far more interesting than the strongest mons making the strongest team which are all heavy hyper offensive. It's Not the AI, it's you Too many times I see people throwing punches at the AI when something is too easy. The AI is faulty, I have had my own cases of it screwing a strategy over, but 7 out of 10 scenarios, it's the designer at fault. Offensively, the AI is fantastic, but defensively it takes quite a bit of work. Instead of throwing a hissy fit why a certain Pokemon wouldn't use a move, I asked myself why it didn't. I've managed to solve many of the "AI not working" problems just through some minor adjustments (only one I couldn't solve is Illumise using Rain Dance). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm just going to end this by saying Hardcore is not the limit of the difficulty of what a Pokemon game can reach. I mean the leaders are not even close to their maximum potential since I designed it for almost any Pokemon to be usable, but only if you have the skills to use it. I even stated I could make a harder version of it if I really wanted to. I just don't think there's a big enough audience to cater to a game that punishes you for not using certain mons and resetting over and over again. With the current system though, it is possible to make.

You do realize Megagross is getting axed for what I believe is a not as obscure event down the line (I'm guessing the scrapyard). Regardless, we can pinpoint almost every pseudos proper location, bar Bagon, and the dessert seems to be a key area for T-tar and Garchomp to be. I don't think we'll hit the desert just yet, but I'm taking a guess another round of starters along with nearly all the water (or Pseudo water) types will be found next episode except Gyarados. Goomy is a wild card as it's possible an event could lead to a meteor giving us a key, but only time will tell.

While I'd love to continue a discussion, it's better suited for a separate topic. It's just one of those casual vs veteran situation where both sides have very, very valid points in what they do. While I may not do it (trust me, I rarely give people exactly what they want, but always what they need to get through a situation in Hardcore), I'm not going to say people can't mod save files for things I don't do. The people who fulfill requests are the ones who set the rules.

I'm not part of the dev team, but the story has honestly remained the same other than some dialogue changes to avoid confusion and to add some details in. Kiki's Lecture being changed is one of the few things I remember, then again it could've changed depending on the option you picked. Anyways, the only reason to replay the game is from a gameplay standpoint as the teams from Radomus back to Julia due to the implementation of field effects and AI changes. As for the reputation system, I think it might be better to wait when someone gets a guide (which won't happen until the final episode if this is used at all) due to how easy it could be to screw up. Of course, it's going to be at least a year before it's relevant. (Ame can correct me if I'm wrong). Reborn is as close to the other regions as Unova is to Kanto. Just a fun little fact I remember from long ago, but Reborn is located just west of Orre hence Agate City and its location. There are some tie ins, but don't expect Team Rocket or some character from the other games to make a cameo appearance as Reborn is also its own thing. As for Arceus, my legendary lore knowledge isn't the best, but I do know it has been alluded that Arceus is indeed an alien Pokemon who created the Pokemon world. It's very ambiguous as we don't know the extent of Arceus's powers, but I'm leaning more towards he was able to create life/some legendaries, not earth, which eventually led to the world in which Pokemon reside. The use of Meteors isn't that far fetched either as we have proof Pokemon can travel through the use of Meteors, supposedly Clefairy used this too given Mt. Moon has a few craters in it, and even Lunatone and Solrock support this with Meteor Falls, that we can't outrule that possibility as being impossible.

For Hardcore, I use the six mon rule up to Florinia to consider what save files are new and not. If their save file doesn't have a full team and they can't catch any more, there's not much that person can really do since some monos get royaly screwed and Hardcore punishes people who use one or two mons (in ways Regular Reborn doesn't). Most of regular Reborn Leaders can be swept with little as one or two so I'd use the rule of 3 up until Julia (unless it's a ghost/dragon mono then Florinia). Though I do that because I'm a stickler on what pokemon I give out: no unobtainable Pokemon, no super popular/super strong Pokemon like Talonflame, Gengar, Aegislash, Gyarados, etc, no legendaries, no shinies, and most importantly no custom movesets (aka no TMs or Egg moves).

Sorry to be kind of stepping in and giving you a sorry, but one of those mons is unobtainable and the other is a choice you have to make at the start of the game. We have a very lenient policy (too lenient if you ask me), but one of the big things is that we only mod save files at the start of the game. And I wouldn't add ice punch to swampert since it is an illegal move due to not being obtainable through normal means (unless it learns it through breeding or something). Also, that'd simply be a free mon which you put no effort into raising. I hold no power to stop anyone from modding your save, but I do believe there is a bit of morality when editing save files since this is considered cheating. I know modding only for new save files is one standard we'd originally had though which I still stand to.

If you really must know what happened, I spammed Water Gun with Mudkip against Cain's Nidoran, but it fainted in which Oshawott got the kill. (I swear that Oshawott is going to be called Soka). Mudkip pretty much destroyed Victoria's Tepig with water gun which would explain the weird leveling. One thing I don't understand with the request he gave me was wanting Panpour instead of Wingull. When comparing Julia and Florinia for a water mono, Julia is the lesser of two evils. I only know this because I did consider doing a water mono. Good luck, no I mean good luck because the beginning is definitely the hardest part.

I'm just going to lay this clear about the whole having the same name as some other fan game or whatever. If it's not intentional you're stealing the name along with the fact the project is dead (trust me when I say many of these games get canceled way before even getting close to being completed) I don't think it's necessarily wrong to use that name if you have a good reason behind it. It's more or less going to be a name confusion if anything. As for the fan-game idea itself I cannot and will not judge mostly because I basically know nothing about it. Considering how long you guys put into planning this league system, I highly doubt you'd just be jumping into the creation without spending some time laying out the story and more importantly the limits of your team (or single person). Too many times I see talented people just burn themselves out and quit midway through making me always skeptical. Anyways enough of my ramblings. While I really wasn't around (hey I did say I was usually busy when the league was up which is very true), I do think the league was pretty successful so that's something you guys should pat your backs on.

Considering I made a list of TMs we should've already had I suppose I could include those: Incinerate Smack Down Low Sweep Calm Mind Shadow Ball Steel Wing/Iron Tail Payback Dragon Tail Power-Up Punch Snarl I can actually think of about a good chunk of Pokemon who get chucked out of the actually useful window just due to these TMs not being available. Like literally it's kind of sad when you think about it since none of these moves are OP and would've been useful for the fights that had to get nerfed. Anyways, I probably could add to the list, but moves like the Screens, T-bolt, Ice Beam, Flamethrower, EQ shouldn't be until the last episode as they not only are powerhouse moves but pretty much are coverage moves for so many Pokemon.

I don't if you've chosen a starter, but if you haven't Venusaur would be a really good choice due to its Bulk and Sleep Powder. Roserade is one of the better options if you have though. Crobat is another good addition to the team as it's almost always going to outspeed anything on the field which is why confuse ray is very useful in doubles. You'll probably want a tanky water, but given Lanturn and Walrein are available so late, Blastoise is probably the best option in that department. I've also seen Empoleon perform quite well. If you get really lucky, the mystery egg will net you Tentacruel or Jellicent who you should use right away. Now for the final slot (unless you added Crobat) I suppose a rock/ground type is going to be the best defensive option here. If you want to go with a Sand Team you'll want to ignore everything I said and pick up Hippowdon. Dugtrio is a good option (I would suggest Aggron, but somebody is already using Magnet thingy) and Sudowoodo is not a bad option either given its Sturdy Counter will get rid of dangerous threats. If you're not up to either of those, Cradily or Archeops are some nifty choices.

If you're having that much trouble on Shade, there's the Nuzleaf event where you can use Foul Play Trickery Shiftry, but an easy way to get through this is to complete the Aqua/Magma fight which you can do. It's really difficult at that level, but you'll get a Houndour (regardless of the path) who'll really help in this fight. Electric types also work wonders like Ampharos.

I suppose it grinds down to if it grows each turn with Rain Dance/Sunny Day how difficult the field will be. If those moves only work on it for 1 turn, I could see the fights not being a problem as it's difficult to build to field to stage 5. Stage 3 though is where Grass starts to shine. I'm not sure whether or not Laura (I believe this field was designed for her in the E4 so Bennett will likely use it as well) will be an offensive or defensive leader (likely Offensive with Chlorophyll). But Jesus that is powerful. I don't see how Bennett or Adrienn would get that much of an advantage in this field though. From an offensive standpoint Bennett would be kind of threatening with fast Pokemon, but yeah, he suffers from lack of fast offensive special bugs syndrome though Volcarona might be tricky to beat. Adrienn this could really suit the best from a story perspective (Obviously it suits Laura the best given there are 8 different colors. What? You didn't notice that?) given Xer ace is Florges and how Xe built and reflorished Reborn.

I suppose I should cover the changes in 2.1 which are more or less just adding water types into the game. I'll just list out the ones I put in -There's a guy (I think I made it gym guy) who sits on one of the slot machines where you can buy a Psyduck from him for 5,000 Poke -There's now a TM shop with pretty expensive TMs which some are good an others meh (though you can buy calm mind for 30,000 and Shadow Ball for 80,000 aka old moves that have been axed). It's available after Corey if I programed it right (I do know it works) -The Magma Gang event will reward you with either a Buizel (it knows it's best moves now), Chinchou (no egg moves), and a Horsea with Splash...I'm not kidding but all are leveled differently with Buizel being the highest and Horsea I believe is level 9. You can't Dragon Scale exploit though -Corey's Qwilfish is located in Coral Ward after defeating Corey -Corey's Nidorina is now a Nidoqueen (with the same moves it used against you aka Ice Punch power). -There's a random Shellos in Shelly's Gym next to the leaf stone -I believe I fixed the Scraggy Key to be available after Aya but who knows -Corey's Haunter is also available after Radomus, but it's pretty hard to find (and is only available under certain conditions). I half assed it so don't expect anything impressive (this'll change for Episode 16). Most of what I did was to balance out Shelly a bit more since I may keep her Perma rain and give Illumise something else like T-wave (since this works so well in her favor). I'll need to test Seadra and Gastrodon out, but I don't think they'll be game breaking imo. Serra will be getting a retest in Episode 16 as now I figured out that field better (when I designed her team, I never actually faced her in regular reborn with it). Enough boring stuff. While I really could do this, I'll probably pass on adding Derpi (Jolteon wielder) and what should be called Arnold Swartz (Flareon user). If you guys want to just imagine him being called ZEL(DA), but I won't be doing anything. I did change the text against Cain to evolve his Dewott. Part of my brain died attempting to learn how to Cain. Solaris, on the other hand, acts more like a sore loser when you beat him (though it makes since because he wasn't fighting at full power and the Camerupt was going to go off anyways). As for the Corey's mons quest, I probably am going to add the rest of them in for a pre Shelly sidequest, but you won't be able to win it that easily given it's going to be really, really hard, but they're are really useful mons so it'd be interesting to see what people decide to use. It'll make a ton more sense in Episode 16 when I implement it. This probably is going to be the only sidequest (the other things are just events to add in underused Water types to the shallow selection) since most of the mons are underused and the fact everyone wants to have all of Corey's mons. So yeah, by Episode 16's end, excluding Crobat, you will be able to get all 10 of Hardcore Corey's mons (since Croagunk is still a thing). That's probably the last major thing I'll add aside from a bonus boss for 16. I'm just saying this so that in your guide you can make the appropriate changes when the time comes.